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Confessions of a Former Agile Methodologist (JFrog Edition)

I am best known for my work as a technology author and evangelist, but before this I used to be a methodology guru. Find out about what I learned in my 14+ year journey through the Agile methodologies and trends that have reshaped what we know as modern software development practices. This version of the talk has a few Easter Eggs for the JFrog guys who were instrumental in the build and test infrastructure I succeeded with, and invited me to speak at their awesome SwampUP event in Napa.

33.
And had to resolve internal conflict
33https://www.flickr.com/photos/skinnylawyer/6884960361/

34.
Conquering the Universe with Agile turned out to be a lot of
work!
34https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/83176915/

35.
So, I made my escape from the Empire
35https://www.flickr.com/photos/p_valdivieso/9006007735

36.
And went back to being just a normal guy…
36https://www.flickr.com/photos/d35ign/11826583146

37.
Some things I learned…
37https://www.flickr.com/photos/23950335@N07/6032572260/

38.
The Agile Manifesto
Process and toolsIndividuals and interactions over
Following a planResponding to change over
Source: www.agilemanifesto.org
Comprehensive
documentation
Working software over
Contract negotiationCustomer collaboration over

43.
But they are not a substitute for experience
43https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/12815430035

44.
How do you know things have gone wrong?
• According to Chapter 5, Section 3, Verse 13 of the Agile Bible…
• Expert XXX has a hyper performing team with 3 hour Sprints, so we need to
do that!
• Same issue comes up in the retrospective… for 3 weeks running!
44

45.
Confession Time…
• I have trouble disagreeing with Ron… maybe
it is the gray beard.
• The guy who forced all your Sprint lengths to
line up – yeah, that was me implementing
what Dean recommended.
• I hate retrospectives! – I would much rather
be coding. 
45https://www.flickr.com/photos/38463026@N04/3925480958

52.
What really makes projects fail?
• Build server… yeah, that is Jonny's machine
• We have unit tests… they are just manually run. And manually verified.
• Software quality? Oh, that is what those guys over there do.
52

53.
Confession Time…
• I occasionally check in binaries, but that is
better than not having them at all.
• I trained teams on Scrum… when I should
have been training them on JUnit.
• All my Agile talks have been on… guess
what, methodologies! (or anti-
methodologies)
53https://www.flickr.com/photos/lon/5582656222

55.
You Think You Are Independent
55
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sylvainkalache/14976661122

56.
But you are NOT!
56
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nzdave/491411546

57.
We are WATCHING YOU
57
Source: Deviant Art, created by SavageSauron
http://savagesauron.deviantart.com/art/The-Great-Eye-326927311

58.
You are a metric junkie when…
• You log in to the Agile tool during vacation to make sure you have a pretty
burn-down chart
• To keep up with the other hyper performing teams, you inflate your
estimates by a factor of 10… then 100… then 1000!
• Your QA team won't accept the build when the code coverage drops below
98%
58

59.
Confession Time…
• Some weeks I spent more time in
Excel then my IDE. 
• 100% code coverage? I have
accomplished that with 0
assertions!
• I have single-handedly killed
projects with pie charts.
59https://www.flickr.com/photos/hoyvinmayvin/4865553148/

65.
You have overdone the tooling when…
• When the QA guy wants you to fix the coffee machine you ask him to file a
bug first
• The only person who writes stories in your planning meeting is the Scrum
Master as he enters them in the online tool
• You go into shock when you meet your team for the first time and realize
you are the only guy… Pat, Alex, Kris, and even Sam are all females!
65

66.
Confession Time…
• I was one of those Scrum masters
who entered in all the stories for my
team.
• Oh, and I also put all the estimates in
for efficiency.
• I trusted some sketchy frogs from
Israel with all our artifacts!
66https://www.flickr.com/photos/blackzack00/15206347052/

67.
And the most important thing!
• Stick with what you are good at…
67
Hacking
Video
Beer

69.
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